Google has added Dublin to its Tech Hub Network through a partnership with Dogpatch Labs.

In what is a major coup for the city’s burgeoning start-up community, the Tech Hub Network increases the amount of start-up resources available from Google in terms of mentors, access to new technologies and access to co-working space in other cities that are part of the Tech Hub Network.

Dogpatch Labs’ members will now also have access to Google Tech Hub co-working space in more than 20 locations around the world, including London, San Francisco and Tel Aviv.

Intercom has raised US$35m in Series C funding, bringing its total funds raised to US$66m, it was announced last week.

Intercom will use the new funds to continue investment in research and development, and to double the staff in its Dublin and San Francisco offices. In Dublin, this will see the creation of 70 new engineering jobs.

Funding was led in this latest round by Iconiq Capital, a global multi-family office and merchant bank, which manages funds of high-profile people including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, with further participation from Series A and Series B lead investors The Social + Capital Partnership and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Findings from a new study into where the best city to be a female entrepreneur is appears to show it’s ‘sweet home, Chicago’ with the city just beating nearby Boston to the title.

The findings of the report, which was compiled by Compass, a software company, and entitled the 2015 Global Startup Ecosystem Ranking, show that overall it has been a relatively good year for female entrepreneurs, with a marked increase on the previous year.

Compiled into a chart by Statista, of Chicago’s portfolio of start-ups founded in 2015, 30pc were led by women, followed closely by Boston on 29pc.

Somewhat incorrectly, it has to be said, the region of Silicon Valley (in San Francisco), is counted as a city and saw 24pc of its companies founded by women, more than Los Angeles and Montreal, which both saw 22pc. The highest-ranked European city was Paris (21pc).

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